Rick Hill is the Valero Alamo Bowl’s VP of Marketing and Communications. Prior to the bowl, Rick spent 6 years working for the Spurs, one season with Missions Baseball and two fruitless months trying to sell season tickets for the S.A. Riders.

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What’s In The Box?

Yesterday 15 boxes of commemorative footballs arrived at the Valero Alamo Bowl office. One panel of each ball was lasered with team and bowl logos, the score, recipient’s name and a line about the game’s status as ESPN’s most-viewed bowl game of all-time. Before volunteers came to our office to put them into cases so they could be sent out this week as our thank you gift, I looked through every box.

All the balls were accounted for except I discovered each box contained one football that had the Texas Tech score but not Michigan State’s. The mistake wasn’t as noticeable as the time the “Welcome to San Antonio” football we ordered for City Manager Sheryl Sculley was made out to “Shirley,” but I’m glad we caught this year’s error before any of the balls had been delivered.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as diligent looking for mistakes when I interned for the San Antonio Missions Baseball Club during their 1992 season. One of my duties was to supervise Batting Helmet Night. Outside of the Famous San Diego Chicken, this was one of the most popular games of the year as the first 1,000 kids received a replica batting helmet–the ones you wore as a kid that didn’t have any padding just an adjustable plastic strap inside along with warning that said “DO NOT USE AS A PROTECTIVE HELMET.”

The helmets arrived two weeks before the game, and I opened a box to make sure the colors and logo were correct. Since everything looked good, I moved all 40 boxes into storage. On game day, I put 10 boxes at each of the four entrances right after lunch. With more than 2,000 fans already in line four hours before the gates would open (surprise, surprise San Antonians love free stuff!), the staff met again to discuss the safest way to distribute the helmets.

The meeting was interrupted when one of the ushers showed us a spiffy looking Quad City River Bandits helmet. Apparently the orders got mixed up and half of their order was sent to us, meaning we only had 20 boxes of Missions helmets.

After the 500 helmets were given out, the next 500 kids in line received vouchers to come back to the ballpark at the end of the month when we’d have the correct helmets available. It was a bad situation made worse by one mother who screamed at me, “How does it feel to ruin my son’s birthday?” Sure enough, her son was crying uncontrollably to the point I thought his Mom must have told him I’d also run over the family dog.

When my apologies and offers of free food fell on deaf ears, I tried to assuage my guilt by finding someone to award the most coveted thing under my control — the chance to race against the Puffy Taco at the end of the sixth inning. This signature promotion is a fan favorite as the young contestant starts at home plate and the Puffy Taco leaves from second base. The kid wins if he catches the Puffy Taco before he touches home plate. As you can see from this video, the Puffy Taco starts running in place after he rounds third base so the kid always wins.

However, a bad night got much worse as the 11 year old boy I selected was unusually slow and the taco mistimed his steps and lost track of where he was. I stood by the Missions dugout watching in horror as the Puffy Taco stepped on home plate just before boy caught up with him. The Missions’ public address announcer Stan Kelly seized the moment as he shouted: “Ladies and gentlemen you have witnessed history. I don’t believe it. For the first time ever, the Puffy Taco has won. The Puffy Taco is the winner!”

The crying I saw out front of the stadium earlier by devasted young boys and girls was nothing compared to the disappointment of a kid being labeled the only “loser” in the history of the promotion. I half-carried, half-dragged him off the field. I offered him another chance but both he and his parents were too dumbfounded to respond so I sulked back to my desk.

This year’s snafu of the missing Michigan State score will mean 15 partners of the Valero Alamo Bowl will have their thank you gift delayed by a week. I hope there’s no crying. I also hope a certain boy who turns 28 this June will drop me a line. I owe him a replica helmet and another shot at beating the Puffy Taco.